Redhawk Caldera run away with me now

After his talks with Wraen and Towhee, where Eljay had tried to gauge whether Wraen and @Maia could be convinced to come home — they couldn't — and where Eljay had discussed what he had been too afraid to discuss with Maia, he felt kind of lost. Eljay just felt a big whirling storm inside of his stomach. He wanted it all. He wanted Maia to be with him and he didn't want to be pining at the borders every day, hoping for her to return soon. He didn't want to be afraid to travel outside of the territory, but the truth was that he was. He didn't want Maia to stop travelling but he wanted her to be a part of the pack and travel from them and for them. He wanted a family. He wanted to raise his children here, where his parents had raised him and most of his siblings.

It seemed that all of the things he wanted could impossibly be compressed into all of the things that Maia wanted. Wraen was the big denominator, because Eljay couldn't possibly ask Maia to leave her sister to stay here and build a life — a family — with him. He didn't want to ask that of her. But.. he did want that family and that life.

Feeling thoroughly lost at sea without a lifeboat, Eljay stared out over the lake in Redhawk Caldera's center while he tried to process all of his thoughts. The sun started to set, much like yesterday when he had had the talk with Towhee, and it looked beautiful. Staring out over the beautifully pink and orange painted lake, it felt as if his thoughts had gotten stuck inside of that sunset and they had not let him go. A breeze tussled his fur around and he sighed while he tried once more to make sense of all the facts and reach a reasonable conclusion. Ah, why had Towhee snapped him out of his state of euphoric denial with Maia by asking all the relevant but horrible questions?